Flu martyrs now pariahs

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Every winter, for the past couple of decades, workplaces have been full of sick people "soldiering on" with colds and flu. Dosed up to their red eyeballs with over-the-counter drugs, they may have masked some of their symptoms but they are no less contagious.

They still sneeze their virus-laden sputum into the air, where millions of molecules can stay floating for as long as 30 minutes, waiting for a new victim to walk past. They still wipe their disease-laden hands onto phones, desks, door handles and taps, and work in a festering heap of snotty tissues and half-eaten packs of Codral.

Wired on pseudoephedrine, these croaky-voiced martyrs expect applause for their commitment to work, but they represent such a public health menace we should really be treating them as pariahs. And, with the deadly advent of SARS and Asian bird flu, the contagious workmate or the guy who sneezes next to you on the bus may be more than a distasteful nuisance.

But there are signs the era of the flu martyr may be waning.

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Tonight a series of TV ads for cold and flu medication Demazin begins in which a man with a scarf around his neck is shown resting at home. "I love sick days," he says, as his neighbours struggle to work, coughing and sneezing, wiping their streaming noses on the sleeves of their winter coats. "Nothing to work on but getting well. No battling on." He snuggles on the couch with a book, sipping steaming cups of something hot, pats his cat and fiddles with his guitar.

Denis Mamo, creative director for URSA ad agency, said the inspiration came from "the whole sea change attitude, the Body Shop pampering, surveys that show people are putting themselves and their families before work".

He perceives a backlash against the, "soldier on and work 'til 2 in the morning for the good of the company attitude of the '80s and '90s".

Demazin's motto is "feel better while you get better".

Some doctors say it may also be healthier.

Bed rest and plenty of fluids may give your body a better chance to fight disease than suppressing coughs and fever with drugs.

Dr Frank Shann, professor of critical care medicine at Melbourne University, has long been warning of the overuse of paracetamol, the pain- and fever-relieving ingredient in Panadol, Codral and many cold remedies (not Demazin). As far back as 1993 he wrote in the Journal Of Paediatrics And Child Health: "Too many parents and health workers think that infection is bad, infection causes fever, and that therefore fever is bad. In fact, fever is often a beneficial host response to infection, and moderate fever improves immunity."

To Dr Shann, the evidence suggests, "aspirin and paracetamol increase mortality in severe infection, and . . . may prolong the infection and reduce the antibody response in mild disease".

Beverly Hills GP Dr Ben Balzer agrees, saying cold and flu drugs work by "suppressing the immune system to reduce the symptoms of pain, fever and tiredness. While this may give temporary relief in a society with a low pain tolerance, it results in increased viral load, increased contagion, prolongation of the illness and reduced long-term immunity to the virus".

Even the drying action of decongestants may prolong sinus infections. He tells his patients to get into bed and "sweat it out and you'll be better in two days".

The best way to reduce suffering, of course, is not to catch the virus in the first place. Dr Balzer urges frequent hand washing, a practice which faded as our reliance on drugs increased.

Then there is the "nasty habit" of shaking hands. Balzer says if we changed to the "more hygienic Asian practice of bowing to each other", we could stop hundreds of thousands of cases of flu every winter.

The most effective public health service of all is to revive the art of the sickie. So next time you feel a sneeze coming on, don't feel guilty. Call in sick. You're doing your boss a favour.

Amid the anniversary pomp, Howard the protector vows to play it safe

John Howard's 30th anniversary dinner at the Hordern Pavilion on Thursday night was the usual interminable fund-raiser, right down to the auction of sports memorabilia. But a video played before the corn-fed chicken and ricotta ravioli proved an intriguing preview of the themes likely to dominate the Liberal election campaign.

Black and white footage gave the video a poignant feel, to go with a haunting soundtrack which sounded to one guest like the Cockaigne overture by patriotic British wartime composer Edward Elgar, but which Liberal Party HQ later said was Green And Pleasant Land by Paul Hart and David Arnold.

To go with the motto "Protecting, Securing, Building Australia's Future" there were a lot of military images, from warships to armed soldiers storming a house. There was a vow to "never forget innocent lives lost" and to "play our part in the fight against global terrorism", and footage of Howard with George Bush, Tony Blair and Kofi Annan. There was Howard in shirt sleeves and hard hat, in a suit with Asian dignitaries, newspaper headlines about Chinese iron ore exports, bulldozers industriously digging, houses being built, suburban streets and children in playgrounds. Peter Costello featured prominently, flipping tax charts, sitting at the cabinet table alongside Howard, with Tony Abbott right beside him.

"Let's keep Australia in safe hands," was the line, one we may be hearing often, at least until August 7, when the Wentworth Hotel ballroom, the scene of Howard's last three election night parties, has reportedly been booked.

Games given ratings at last

Good news for parents confused about ratings on computer games. The Senate quietly passed a bill creating a uniform classification system for games and movies 10 days ago.

Computer games had always been subject to a separate and confusing system of ratings, ranging from G and G8+ to M (15+), MA (15+) and RC.

While most parents trying to monitor their children's entertainment understand how movie ratings work, they weren't sure how to judge content in computer games, short of spending 50 hours navigating through every level of a game themselves.

Now games' ratings are the same as those of movies: G, PG (parental guidance recommended for children under 15 because of material that might be mildly upsetting), M (mature, not recommended for children aged under 15) and MA (15+) (legally restricted to people aged 15 and over).

"Many parents are too busy to learn different classification systems, so a universal classification scheme is in everyone's interests," Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said in a press release.

The difference is that there is still no R (restricted to adults aged 18 and over) classification for games, as there is for movies, even though the first generation to play computer games is now in its 40s.

Any game deemed too violent or sexually explicit by the Office of Film and Literature Classification will simply be refused classification. They will be banned unless the distributor edits out offending material, which in some cases is pointless.

The laudable aim is to protect children from accessing unsuitable games. In practice, however, it may backfire. OFLC classifiers might be more inclined to allow a borderline game to slip into the MA (15+) classification, as the sadistic thrill kill game Manhunt did, rather than go to the drastic length of banning it.